Dog Breed Info

Best Guard Dogs

The first responsibility of a good watchdog or guard dog is to bark and alert their owner of an intruder, and hopefully scare him away. A watchdog's responsibility ends here, but not a guard dog's, his job goes one step further. A good guard dog is capable or restraining or attacking the intruder.

A really good guard dog is discriminating, they can tell the difference between a friend or foe. When properly trained, they can restrain an intruder without causing severe injury. Many of these dogs are specially trained as police and security dogs, and will bite, restrain, and release an intruder only on specific commands.

Some of these breeds were bred specifically as guard dogs, others were originally farm, herding, or hunting dogs that, because of natural protective and territorial instincts, were developed to be guard dogs. Many of these dogs are intimidating looking, especially when they act aggressive. And many time, that is enough to scare someone off.

Almost all of these dogs are large to very large in size. Their size, combined with potential aggressiveness, makes it very imperative that these dogs receive proper training. Most often when a dog breed receives a bad reputation, it is due to poor breeding practices by irresponsible people, and from dogs that are not properly trained. Owning a dog that has the natural instinct to be a good guard dog brings with it great responsibility. Make sure you are willing to take on that responsibility to raise and train the dog properly. When this is done, not only do these dog breeds make good guard dogs, they can also become a wonderful part of the family.